Google Announces G Pay

Google announced last month that it had decided to merge Android Pay and Google Wallet into a unified payment solution (think: Apple Pay) – and now it’s acted on the declaration with the much-anticipated release of Google Pay.

From what we can tell, Google Pay – G Pay – is a reskinned version of the Android Pay application. The interface has been made more compliant with Big G’s Material Design guidelines and a couple of new features have been introduced.

The most notable change we’ve uncovered is that the application now generates a list of nearby brick-and-mortar stores that accept Google Pay. It also makes it a lot easier to access all of your loyalty cards and view recent transactions.

In addition, Google released a new version of Google Wallet. It’s called Google Pay Send and has been designed to rival Apple Pay Cash, PayPal and Venmo, letting customers send and request money in a slew of different currencies.

Folks in the United Kingdom and the United States shouldn’t need to use Google Pay Send for too long, said a source familiar with the firm’s plans, later noting that they’ll be able to access the feature from Google Pay in the near feature.

We aren’t sure how accurate that prediction is, however, so we’d suggest taking it with a considerable pinch of salt. One thing is for certain, though: G Pay has a number of neat new tricks up its sleeve and they’ll start rolling out soon.

Customers with Android Pay installed on their smartphone shouldn’t need to do anything to trigger the update. New users, on the other hand, will need to head over to the Play Store to download and install G Pay on their handset.

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